Lifeguard recounts futile battle to save Abbie from collapsed sandpit

A lifeguard who tried in vain to rescue three-year-old Abbie Livingstone-Nurse as she lay trapped in a 5ft hole in sand on a beach said yesterday that nothing more could have been done to save her.

Ben May, 23, was patrolling Upton Towans Beach, near Hayle, Cornwall, when he was alerted by the girl's screams. He found Abbie trapped in the pit under tons of sand.

The girl's stepfather Ian Sayer had managed to pull out Abbie's five-year-old brother Joe after the walls of the pit collapsed on the children, but he was unable to rescue the toddler.

When Mr May arrived at the pit, all he could see was Mr Sayer's back.

"It was a very deep and narrow pit," he said. "I could not see the child but I could hear her crying and asking for her mum.

"Understandably the father was panicking. The dry sand was filling up the pit and he was trying to hold it back.

"He was distraught and his back was holding back some of the sand but he was tiring and could not hold it up. Once the other bank fell we both knew he could not do anything more.

"It was clear we needed professional help to try to save her."

Lifeguards and paramedics fought for 30 minutes to keep a passage to the girl's head and chest so she could breathe. Mr May reached down and used his arm to create a path for air to reach the child's face.

He could feel her breathing getting weaker as her chest was crushed by more than a ton of sand, which made resuscitation almost impossible.

He said: "I had my hand on her mouth and kept it slightly open and I could feel her breathing the air which was coming down the hole made by my arm.

"I tried pulling her out by her arm but she would not budge because of the weight of sand on the rest of her body.

"We cleared the sand again and by now the emergency services had arrived and we managed to get an airway open. She was not breathing. We tried to give her rescue breaths. We gave her at least 20 breaths before the paramedics took over.

"Everyone tried everything they could to save her."

Phillip Drew, the beach manager for Penwith district council, said: "Once the sand had started to go in, it would not stop. As quick as we were digging sand out, it was going back in."

He said it had been mainly dry sand but that it was harder and more compacted at the lower depth.

He said: "We think the children started tunnelling underneath and that is when the collapse occurred. The girl was probably in further than the boy.

"The boy was pulled out by the father and then he went back to get the little girl. By that time a ton of sand was sitting on her legs and her back area.

"Further collapses put more sand on top of her and that was it. She was wedged tight.

"We tried to pull her out but the weight of sand on her made it impossible."

He added: "This is a particularly unusual accident. We have lots of children who come onto the beach and dig lots of holes in the sand.